Government came under fire yesterday in the Senate for using taxpayers? money to fund political focus groups.

Opposition Senate Leader Kim Swan said his concern with focus groups was that Government should not have to ask how people are thinking about them.

?It is an indictment on the Government itself,? Sen. Swan said. ?It corroborates many a person who said Government was not listening for the last six to seven years. I can?t fathom how they could be so out of touch to have to embrace a focus group.?

If the Progressive Labour Party wanted to hold a focus group, he said he would have no problem with that because it is a political entity.

?But Cabinet and the Civil Service are separate from that,? he said. ?I am concerned when, in this regard, the lines between politics and the Civil Service have crossed.?

He said the integrity of the Civil Service needed to be protected as it had a responsibility to govern not-with-standing which party was in power.

And he said Government should ask the opinions of the seniors who marched on Parliament last year.

?They will tell you for free,? he said.

Opposition Sen. Bob Richards said, under a parliamentary system of democracy, it was the job of MPs to go out and listen to the public.

?We are not up there to warm seats,? Sen. Richards said. ?We are to go out and find out what is on the minds of the constituents. This is not the job of civil servants.?

Party politics money and Government money should be separate, he added.

?Don?t use taxpayer?s money to do a party political job,? he said.

However, Government Senate Leader Larry Mussenden said Government was committed to transparency but methods of communication between politicians and the public were limited to the House of Assembly and the Senate.

?Our voices and words are misunderstood or misdirected,? Sen. Mussenden said. ?The delivery of our message is in the hands of others.?

In order to address this the Department of Communication and Information formed focus groups to gather firsthand information on how the public, think and feel, he said.

Quantitative surveys, dealing in numbers and percentages, do not give the underlying motivations for decisions, or how a percentage of the public?s opinion might shift if they were offered something else, he said.

?It is a more in-depth and more meaningful key for us as a Government of the people,? he said.

PLP Senator Walter Roban said every Government in the world uses focus groups as they are an ?extremely legitimate? testing method.